On the Range with Tiger 07

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We hit Eldrick's massive practice facility and play some PS3.

By Jonathan Miller

Ah, the driving range; A perfect place to crack open an MGD, grip it and rip it, and hustle your friends for money. While alcohol (an integral aspect of the game of golf in this editor's opinion) has not made it into Tiger Woods PGA Tour just yet, the driving range has... along with the putting green and a massive practice facility.

Measuring at about 400 yards long and 200 yards wide, with water and bunkers in play, the practice facility in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 is huge. Consequently, there's a lot to do here. On the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game, EA has included a number of mini-games (including all of the Skill Zone challenges from Tiger 05), and new games like Target-to-Target and Seven. Target-to-Target is your basic aim-for-the-bull's-eye-for-points test, while Seven offers a more interesting challenge.

Remember those old "Nothing but net" commercials with Michael Jordan and Larry Bird, where they continually one-upped each other by going off the rafters, through the window, off the soda machine, nothing but net? That's kind of what Seven, a fun little two-player game, is. The first player picks a point anywhere on the practice facility to hit from, then any of the different greens on the grounds, and then any of the three or four different pin locations. The player that shoots closest to the pin gets a point. If you hole the shot you get two points. If the first player holes it and the second player responds and holes his shot, he gets four points. First player to seven wins. There's also "21," a similar game for putting.

But for all the great mini-games in the world, it's the PGA career mode we really care about. For every hour a professional golfer spends competing on the course, he spends countless more on the range, putting green, and in the practice bunker. In Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, you too will hit buckets of balls in order to improve your golfer's skills. No longer do you buy attribute points with money earned at events. This time around, taking part in a number of different drills on the practice facility will win you the green jacket, if there's a green jacket in the game, that is.

While we previewed Tiger 07 from Chicago earlier this week, we finally got our hands-on one hole of Tiger on a PlayStation 3 development-kit, which is the size of a large briefcase and sounds like a giant bee-hive. Tiger PS3 is noticeably behind the 360 version, but it won't be released until November so there is still plenty of time to catch up. EA already told us that the content will be identical on both versions, but EA is toying with the idea of utilizing the tilt-sensor of the PS3 controller, but nothing has been announced.

Designer Dave Woldman walked us through the 18th at St. Andrews, which already looked great. The undulation and little rolling hills on the fairway and green were clearly visible, and the buildings in the background made me want to stop for tea and crumpets. Luckily EA was serving beer and burgers outside, so I made do. The PS3 framerate was very choppy with this pre-alpha build, but controlling Tiger felt identical to the 360 version. That gives us hope that once everything is ironed out visually, the game should look virtually identical to the 360 version as well. So unless EA incorporates some new control method with the PS3 controller, then next-gen Tiger will be the same solid golf game across the board.